In the aftermath of Edwards v. Aguillard the Creationism movement was offered a rather ironic choice: evolve or die. In order to get around that pesky Establishment Clause problem (which the Federal government finally got around to enforcing on this matter) all references to the Christian god needed to be removed from Creationism. It was decided that the use of pseudo-scientific terms would aid in throwing a cloak of empiricism over the old Creationist arguments.
By co-opting more rational-sounding (but still utterly subjective) teological concepts like the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which has its roots in Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, and the work of Christian writers like William Paley, author of the Watchmaker Argument, the Creation science movement began the shift towards separating itself from strictly Bible-based arguments to counter the Creator-optional concept of evolution. This would not be enough, though.
The real trick was to make Creationism sound like rational, scientific thought. Many attribute this shift to Dr. Charles Thaxton, a well-lettered chemist and biologist and evangelical Christian. He wrote the book Of Pandas And People, which is considered the first major work of the Intelligent Design movement.
An older draft of the Intelligent Design reference book Of Pandas And People which clearly shows an instance of 'creationist' being replaced with more scientific-sounding terminology.
Of Pandas And People was used as a reference book in biology classes in Dover, Pennsylvania as a way to justify the teaching of Creationism. In 2005 several parents of children in that school district sued over this obvious breach of the Establishment Clause. The resulting court case, Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et. Al., brought to light exactly what Dr. Thaxton was attempting to do with Of Pandas And People. Early drafts of the book show that the terms Creator and creation were eventually changed over to the words Designer, cdesign and intelligent design. It was quite obvious to Judge John E. Jones III that this was a veiled attempt of evangelical Christianity to usurp the role of science yet again.
